“Budge up, budge up,” said Gardner, shooing Hunter along as he, Jimmy and Emily muscled their way into the tamer box just before the match between Aurin and Tobias was due to commence.
“What are you three doing?” asked Kyle with a raised eyebrow.
“Getting the best seats in the house,” said Jimmy with a wink while Emily nodded along.
“You think we want to be stuck fifty rows back?” she asked.
“Aren’t you worried you’ll be kicked out?” asked Luna, putting a finger to her chin.
Gardner shook his head and gave a smarmy grin. “No, see, the officials will all be way too focused on the battle to care that a trio of ne’er-do-wells like us are sitting in the wrong seats.”
“Just be careful you don’t alert your best friend,” said Hunter, nodding towards Frederick. “He would relish the chance to get you thrown out, no doubt.”
“I doubt he cares much,” shrugged Kyle as the speakers across the stadium hummed with static.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Ludonia,” boomed the announcer, bringing the chattering of the crowd to an end. “For the last time this year, let me welcome you to St Michael’s Stadium in the heart of Ludonia. This fine evening, we’ve got the match that everything has been building up to. On one side, we’ve got our relentless competitor, Aurin, who has pushed his way up through the ranks over the last couple of years. On the other side, it’s our reigning champion who you all know and love, Tobias!”
Aurin and Tobias walked out onto the battlefield and waved to the crowd who exploded with enthusiasm as the two battlers headed for the centre to greet each other. It only now dawned on Aurin how much more in control of the crowd Tobias was with his many gestures aimed to amp them up beyond their already-high levels of excitement. While he may have won himself a few fans over the course of the tournament, Tobias undoubtedly had the vast majority of the crowd on his side.
“Listen to that,” said Tobias to Aurin as the two met in the centre of the battlefield. “A beautiful sound, my friend, isn’t it?”
“I barely heard a word of what you said, Tobias,” joked Aurin, making the national champion guffaw.
“I’ve been watching you throughout the tournament, Aurin,” said Tobias, holding out a hand that was covered in a gold and black tamer glove, which Aurin shook. “You’ve improved considerably, even from when we were training in Briarwood. I want nothing but your best, alright?”
“I would give nothing less.”
Tobias nodded. “I want you to defeat me, but I would never disrespect you and let you win. You ready?”
“I’ve got no idea, but we’ll find out, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will.”
With that, the two departed from each other’s company and walked back to their starting positions. Unlike most of his matches, Aurin’s hand was trembling and his breathing was faster than normal. Even though he had come so far and proud of what he had achieved, he truly wanted to win.
“And with both competitors standing ready,” said the announcer, “let’s count them in. Three. Two. One. Fight!”
Aurin and Tobias launched their hands out with Aurin casting out a cream-coloured light and Tobias a grey light. As the lights faded, Zenoman and Titamet were revealed, standing before their respective tamers. The purple spectre with his metal mask, gloves and boots was a giant compared to the alien, who was barely the height of his tamer, looking very-much mismatched, but Zenoman was itching to battle this intimidating foe.
The golden alien flew across the battlefield with his fists floating alongside him as Titamet hurled conjured steel spikes at him. Zenoman dodged half of them and managed to grab four of them before stopping at the centre of the field. He flipped the spikes around and sent his hands flying out in different directions.
Titamet turned his head rapidly, trying to keep his eye on each of the hands. As they threw his own spikes back at him, he encased his entire body in metal and took the blows. He maintained his armour as Zenoman’s fists flew towards him and started to pummel him, doing seemingly nothing as he focused on maintaining the strength of his plating to protect his inner body.
“So far, so good,” said Aurin, watching closely.
His plan was to force Titamet to maintain his armour and drain his stamina to gain an early lead over Tobias. The early lead would give him momentum and put the onus on Tobias to catch up, similar to how Aurin won against Hunter. Yet, he knew it would only be a matter of time before Tobias worked that out, if he hadn’t already.
Seizing an opening, Titamet wrapped his arms around two of Zenoman’s fists and crushed them tightly against his body. Zenoman’s remaining two hands to pulled at Titamet while the other two pushed from within to be freed again. In the distraction, Titamet exploded his armour into shrapnel that flew both towards the four fists, which swiftly dropped to the ground to avoid the attack, but the true target of the propelled scraps of metal stood at the centre of the battlefield.
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Zenoman created a psychic barrier in front of himself, blocking the attack and then recalled his fists to him, but Titamet was quick off the mark and grabbed one of them. He wrapped his gauntlet-clad fingers around a thumb and an index finger, pulling in an attempt to tear the detached extremity in two.
To rescue their fellow hand, the three remaining hands delivered a flurry of blows to Titamet’s gut, forcing him to release it. Even after taking so many attacks, Titamet looked barely phased as the fists backed off. He leaned over and started sprinting towards Zenoman’s body. Seeing that his own Minakai was exerting much more energy than Tobias’s, Aurin could see that it was time to go for broke and launch his backup plan.
“One hundred fists!” he called out.
Zenoman’s fists began to glow and then massively multiplied before the eyes of the entire stadium. The four became ten, the ten became twenty, the twenty became fifty and, finally, one hundred. The hundred floating fists clenched hard and then darted for Titamet, who sent out a wave of metal energy, forcing a dozen of the fists to dissipate.
Still, it was not enough, and even the successive attacks left Zenoman with three dozen fists that pummelled the purple phantom. With each blow, Titamet’s attempts to block became slower and slower. Before long, he was on the ground and being struck by the remaining dozen fists. As he stopped moving, Zenoman’s original four fists were all that was left and, with a final strike from each, Titamet lost consciousness.
“I don’t believe it!” cried the announcer. “Aurin comes away with the first win of the match, but he had better watch out, that will only fire Tobias up.”
“Good,” said Tobias quietly, holding up his tamer glove. “Now let’s see what you make of this, young Aurin!”
In a burst of light and with a mighty roar, his Guilgon appeared and charged through the air, beating his mighty wings. The blue dragon was accosted by the flying fists of Zenoman, only for them to be knocked out of the air by Guilgon’s water jets. Keeping his head low, the dragon rammed into Zenoman, knocking him to the ground.
Tobias’s Minakai landed and grabbed Zenoman by the legs and flung him overhead before beating his wings and flying up after him. As Zenoman’s fists rushed to his aid, Guilgon swiped them back to earth with his dagger-like nails before beating Zenoman’s body with his tail.
As the golden alien plummeted, Guilgon gave chase and unleashed a powerful water jet that struck Zenoman’s head and sent him accelerating to the ground. He erected a barrier around himself and crashed into the dirt, leaving a small crater, but the barrier was not enough to keep him in the fight and he quickly lost consciousness.
“That was brutal,” said Luna, wrinkling her nose. “Poor Zenoman.”
“He’ll recover,” said Kyle, watching as Aurin banished his Minakai back to the ranch, “but there goes Aurin’s lead.”
“Only a powerful force can stop a raging river,” said Aurin as he held out his hand and focused on a deep blue summoning stone. “Like an even more furious river.”
Steambot landed on the field and Guilgon shot a water jet from the air. Steambot launched jets of his own from his palms. They met Guilgon’s jets and they all petered out as the dragon lowered himself onto the ground and settled his feet firmly.
The hulking blue metal robot held up one of his three-fingered hands and beckoned Guilgon towards him before clenching his fists and assuming a fighting stance.
“Bold,” said Tobias with a chuckle. “This isn’t a fight you’ll win when my monster has claws that can tear apart metal with ease.”
Guilgon sprinted forwards and drew back an arm, readying a swipe. When he came close, he jumped and somersaulted through the air, bringing his tail down and slamming it against the top of Steambot’s body. Before it could be flicked away, the metal brute grabbed it, raising his arms up and then slamming Guilgon onto the ground.
The dragon rolled over and lurched forward with a claw, swiping across Steambot’s chest, but the robot kept a firm hold of his opponent’s tail. With a tug, Guilgon slipped and Steambot began rotating on the spot, dragging the swiping dragon along the ground while taking strike after strike to the body as his casing was shredded.
As he was spun around, Guilgon found himself unable to reach Steambot who continued to pick up speed. He was spinning so fast that everything was blurry to him and the centrifugal force on Guilgon was so great that he was unable to twist around and free himself.
Steambot suddenly unleashed his foe, who sped towards the concrete wall and crashed into it before slumping to the ground. As Guilgon tried to stand, a dizzy Steambot had managed to lock onto him. The dragon was seeing double, but there was no mistaking the rumbling of the pipes seconds before they erupted into a powerful pressure cannon that pinned him against the wall.
Aurin’s Minakai staggered forwards with his chest casing ripped open, exposing his circuitry and wires, but he held himself together. Guilgon flailed and wailed as he was unable to free himself from the endlessly flowing water, being utterly dominated in the battle. Once Steambot was close enough, he ceased his signature technique and charged forwards.
He began delivering heavy punches to the dragon, who was so battered that he didn’t have the strength to fight back. Steambot finished him off with a crunching headbutt to the skull before Guilgon flopped onto the ground with his wings spread out across the grass.
“Aurin’s going full throttle!” cried Jimmy, looking to the others. “He’s in the lead!”
“Tobias hasn’t used his best Minakai yet,” said Gardner uncertainly, “and Aurin’s Steambot is one of his. Things are only going to get more difficult from here.”
“Agreed,” said Kyle, leaning forward and clasping his hands together as he watched the battle.
Tobias raised his arm into the sky and then clenched his fist, making the brown summoning stone embedded within his black and gold glove glow. With a terrifying roar, he summoned his Grakadon to the battlefield.
Steambot turned to face his enemy, knowing that he had the elemental advantage. He conjured up a wave and Grakadon stomped a single foot, bringing up two walls of stone that funnelled the wave away. The brown dragon took to the skies and focused his orange eyes on the robot below who was readying a pressure cannon.
Grakadon raised a hand, conjured a black stone spear into it and launched it at his foe. Steambot shot the spear with his cannon, but the obsidian spear cut straight through the pressurised blast of water and struck Steambot on the chest, embedding itself within him and piercing through to the other side. Aurin’s Minakai staggered around for a few seconds before collapsing on the ground.
“And it looks like we’re back to level once more,” said the announcer. “Each contender has three Minakai left and Tobias has opted for his Grakadon. What will Aurin summon to meet our champion’s favourite immovable object.
Aurin looked to his tamer glove where there were three summoning stones still unused. His eyes focused on a brown one and he smiled as he raised his hand.
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Aurin's Team:
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